70-year-old San Francisco Giants manager Felipe Alou claimed Larry Krueger’s scalp today:
On “Sportsphone 680” last Wednesday night, Krueger made reference to the Giants’ “brain-dead Caribbean hitters hacking at slop nightly.” That led to Krueger getting a suspension that was due to end this Monday.
Giants manager Felipe Alou refused to accept an apology from Krueger. Alou appeared on ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” program Monday night and called Krueger “this messenger of Satan, as I call this guy now. … And I believe there is no forgiveness for Satan.”
On Tuesday morning, KNBR aired Alou’s sound bite from “Outside the Lines” and then parodied it with Satan references from the Comedy Central show “South Park.”
That apparently was the impetus for Rhein’s dismissal — and might have had something to do with the termination of Agnew, who had been with KNBR since 1989.
“The segment, featuring inappropriate comedy sound bites,” Salvadore wrote in the statement, “demonstrated an utter lack of regard for the sensitivity of the issues involved and a premeditated intent to ridicule Felipe Alou’s commentary.”
There’s a saying in baseball that players from the Dominican Republic (Alou’s home) don’t “walk off the island”, they have to hit their way into the major leagues. Krueger said nothing that hasn’t been said a million times before.
Alou wouldn’t let the issue die, probably because he was offended by the cream of wheat remark, and probably because the heavily Latin team that’s been assembled in Frisco since Alou’s been in town really, really sucks. Three years ago, the Giants made it to the World Series with David Bell, Jeff Kent, J. T. Snow and Rich Aurilia in the infield. Now they’re 48-63 with Omar Vizquel, Edgardo Alfonzo, Deivi Cruz, and Pedro Feliz.
It’s time for the Giants to fire Alou and rebuild the team with an eye toward winning, without regard for ethnicity, native language, or cereal preference.
Hey, you can have David Bell back. Please.
He came through for the Giants in ’02, anyhow.
And can we have the A’s back too? We’ll trade you the Phils straight up.
I dunno about that – if they aren’t playing in the Coliseum they’d probably suck.